Good questions! 1) You don't have to use a cage when using match by name (it is basically making one for you based off those ray distance values), but I have experienced cage bakes looking slightly better. 2) That would be very surprising if true but I can't speak to that. 3) No, but more geometry means you can get the low…
"I make sure there are separate smoothing groups assigned to each UV island" You absolutely do not need to do that, at all. Some people do it because their assets or art style just happens to be visually compatible with this brute force approach, but this is absolutely not a necessary condition. By doing so, you simply run…